notary public

[discobay]

Other than the Australian consulate where or who else can witness signed documents for use in Australia?

[Oldtimer]

You can do it for free .
You can sign in the presence of the Commissioner of Oaths. see the link below.
However whether it will be accepted by the party in Australia, you have to check with them

http://www.had.gov.hk/en/public_serv...s/provided.htm

Other than the Australian consulate where or who else can witness signed documents for use in Australia?

[Lootoo]

It all depends on what Australia wants to accept. Any UK solicitor is considered a "commissioner for oaths", but only within the UK. In the USA, the witnessing has to be done by a Notary Public--a US lawyer is not good enough.

[croash]

I used this service myself recently..fairly straightforward , documents are stamped as witnessed and signed by their legal person...it all happened in English for me, sent the paperwork back to Oz and all ok.

Sent from my HTC One X using GeoClicks Mobile

[dragon_simon]

Agree with the other posters thst you woll need yo check on the requirement from the authority/ lawyer of the receiving party.

For a land transfer in HK, the requirement to act as Notary public was that they had to be a registered lawyer in HK, so my UK lawyer and the Chinese consulate did not meet this requirement.

At that time, there were only 2 lawyers in the UK who could act as Notary Public to validate my own signature! Both were in the big smoke...what an inconvenience just to find a bloody witness...he was a miserable git as well!

[HKHK154]

Could a C.dec or JP (Aussie one) living in Hong Kong do that for you? surely must be some..

[Lootoo]

Agree with the other posters thst you woll need yo check on the requirement from the authority/ lawyer of the receiving party.

For a land transfer in HK, the requirement to act as Notary public was that they had to be a registered lawyer in HK, so my UK lawyer and the Chinese consulate did not meet this requirement.

At that time, there were only 2 lawyers in the UK who could act as Notary Public to validate my own signature! Both were in the big smoke...what an inconvenience just to find a bloody witness...he was a miserable git as well!

I should mention that there is an alternative to finding a "local" person authorised to witness a signature under a foreign law, which is the "Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents". Hong Kong is a signatory, as are most other countries. I've had to do this for certain loan-related documents when I was in the UK. What you do is get a LOCAL notary or commissioner for oaths (whatever works for this purpose where you are, e.g., the UK), and then the notarised document is presented to the appropriate LOCAL government authority (e.g., the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the UK) which affixes an "apostille" to the document. The apostille is essentially an official certification that the local notary is authorised to witness documents. All that is easy, if somewhat cumbersome and expensive...

The hard part is getting the recipient of the now expensively and foreignly notarised document to accept it! Because unless they're used to receiving apostilled documents, they will likely have no idea what an apostille is or whether they can accept it. Good luck!

[nassaugirl]

You can do it for free .
You can sign in the presence of the Commissioner of Oaths. see the link below.
However whether it will be accepted by the party in Australia, you have to check with them

http://www.had.gov.hk/en/public_serv...s/provided.htm

Could I get a will witnessed by the Commissioner of Oaths?

[amitsingh_hk]

you could but that is totally unnecessary, inconvenient and expensive when all you need is a single witness to confirm a will's validity... at least in HK that is the case

[Gruntfuttock]

True except the inconvenient & expensive bit - Statutory Declarations before a Commissioner of Oaths are free in HK and easy to do.